It is probably unfair to use the GED or General Equivalency Diploma as an example of something so easy an idiot (caveman?) could pass it, but in keeping with my opening theme of looking at Palin as if Chris Rock was doing the commentary, I'll just have to ask everyone's forgiveness.

Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric didn't ask Palin difficult, misleading or gotcha questions. To paraphrase Chris Rock regarding Michael Jackson, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric tried their best, they asked Sarah Palin the easiest questions in the world, the easist GED questions in the world and Governor Palin could not pass the test. Katie Couric was like, "Governor Palin, do you really think that being able to see Russia on a clear day from your house means that you have foreign policy experience". And Sarah Palin said 'Yes!'. Couric said "Let me rephrase the question, "Have you ever been in any negotiations with Russians". To which Palin replied "It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where-where do they go? It's Alaska."

As good as she is at trying to hide her reactions, Couric had this look on her face like she was thinking, "Are you CRAZY????"

Of course, if you go to Free Republic or any conservative leaning website, they talk about how Gibson and Couric tried to trip up Palin. Tried to trip her up? They did everything to help her but try to answer the questions for her. Couric gave Palin a free question to clarify her earlier remarks from the Charles Gibson interview on Russia and she could not come up with a better answer than the one she gave to Gibson a week earlier. How is that possible? How can it be that her handlers didnt make her come up with a better answer in advance? How can it be that she didnt spend time thinking about a better answer on her own?

Fareed Zakaria's latest article in Newsweek is even more critical of Palin's abilities than I am. It's titled "Palin Is Ready? Please." http://www.newsweek.com/id/161204 . Zakaria comes right out and asks "Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"?

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Zakaria characterizes a Palin answer to Couric on the economy as "a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head. Some commentators, like CNN's Campbell Brown, have argued that it's sexist to keep Sarah Palin under wraps, as if she were a delicate flower who might wilt under the bright lights of the modern media. But the more Palin talks, the more we see that it may not be sexism but common sense that's causing the McCain campaign to treat her like a time bomb."

Come on Fareed, tell us what you really think! (p.s. I agree)

The overwhelming consensus that Palin is not anywhere near being ready to assume the duties of Vice President let alone and perish the thought of President, brings an interesting perspective to one of the tactics (yes, John, T-A-C-T-I-C-S) of John McCain in last night's debate where he tried to characterize Obama as unready and not getting it. Senator McCain, why don't YOU get it that the country is in the kind of financial and foreign policy mess that requires the best possible people running it and that because of your choice, instead we could get woefully unready Sarah Palin at the helm? That is bad judgment, Senator McCain, and YOU DON'T GET IT.

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The last thing I will say about the two interviews I will say through a video from my favorite curmogeonly old man, Jack Cafferty

The question I would ask my readers is, if she is able to 'cram' enough information to make a passable show at the Vice Presidential debate, should that matter? We know how little she knows and we know that she isnt ready. If she is able to somehow come close enough in performance during the debate to Joe Biden, would that mean anything? I give a one in ten thousand possibility of Palin making a good show at the debate, but it is possible. Should that mean anything if it happens. Does that all of a sudden make her able to have what it takes to be President? Do you think the average American would think it means something? My opinion is that the debates add a little context to what we have already seen from the candidates. If we arent sure if someone is ready to be President or Vice President, but we dont think it is totally out of the realm of possibility, the debates help us see that one way or the other. I dont think the debates were meant for someone so unfit and unready as Palin to be able to have the best 90 minutes of their lives and be crowned as ready for the White House or Naval Observatory.

I say this nearly a week in advance, because I remember the farce that was Palin's appearance at the Republican National Convention. I realize that someone else wrote her speech and that it was telepromptered, and the performance didnt mean anything to me, but the punditry turned it into some sort of marvelous event and achievement. Is it possible for something like that to happen again. I hope not. I hope Sarah Palin displays exactly what her level of experience and readyness is at the debate and the punditry call it exactly what it is.

A political blogger for the International Business Times, Steve Leser is a hot national political pundit. He has appeared on MSNBC's Coundown with Keith Olbermann, Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Russia Today's (RT) Crosstalk with (more...)